“This is a classic crisis of the economy – a classic capitalist crisis. I’ve been waiting for this for a generation!

“For Christ’s sake don’t waste it, you know; let’s use this to explain to people this system based on greed and profit does not work.”

Most of the comments I have read seem to think that his “welcoming” the financial crash of 2008 is the main story. I don’t see it that way. He could reasonably claim (added later: he has claimed) that it was said as a self-mocking joke about the way Marxists have been predicting the imminent demise of capitalism for years and only now, it seems, has it finally happened. No, I think the damning part is “I’m honest with people: I’m a Marxist.”

My title for this post was also intended as a historical joke. There is no doubt about what party Mr McDonnell belongs to, the Labour Party. The doubt that arises in many people’s minds is whether under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership this is still a party normal people can vote for without going the full Venezuela. We know he is now and has long been a member of the Labour party, but someone will inevitably now ask Mr McDonnell, “Are you a Marxist?”

In 2013 his straight and honest answer was “Yes”. If he answers “No” three years later, will people believe him? When did he change and why?

If he answers “Yes”… this man is Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.

*

Update: Mr McDonnell appeared on Question Time last night. He was asked by David Dimbelbly if he was a Marxist, in the light of that video. Watch the first half minute of this clip to see how he responds. At 15 seconds in we have:

Dimbelby: “Are you a Marxist?”

McDonnell: “No, I’m a socialist.”

Dimbelby: “Well, why say, ‘I’m a Marxist'”?

McDonnell: “Because actually I was trying to, I was demonstrating, a prediction of the capitalist crisis at the time.”

Anna Soubry’s lengthy attack on him afterwards becomes tedious, but she got a solid round of applause for her initial indignant restatement of fact in the face of this farrago: “You said, ‘I’m a Marxist'”.

September 15th, 2016 |

11 comments to Mr McDonnell, are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?

Expect his defenders to start drawing fine distinctions between Marxists and Stalinists or Maoists…

Although as I have yet to see anyone produce a Marxist economy that had the wealth available to work (no theoretical reason why it shouldn’t, so long as there was far more wealth being produced than could actually be used – of course, this over-consumption might cause problems for Mr McDonnells more superficial environmental credentials…).

Karl Marx understood that credit money expansion did terrible harm – led to speculative bubbles and then collapse. He got his understanding of this matter from his reading of David Ricardo. This anti Keynesianism (before J.M. Keynes was even born) is one of the very few good points of Marxist economics – most of the rest of it is headbanging insanity.

As for John McDonnell – a rather well preserved man (not fat and bald like me) and always well dressed.

Of course he is a total Red who would (if he gained power) lead to the deaths of millions of people. But elections are not about policy – they are about image.

Since the Party leadership has been that way since at least the late 1930s, I think we can safely assume that it’s not just a passing fancy.

See many past discussions on the disconnect between what the Party leaders stand for vs what the Party’s voters think it stands for. While their Marxism may have been a bit wobbly in the past – there were various dalliances with Stalinism and Trotskyism, after all – their totalitarian urge is as strong and consistent as ever. As we see in the current leader. he is not an aberration – he is just the continuation of a long line of Labour Party leaders. The difference is that he says what he believes, unlike past leaders who believed the same things as he does but were careful to screen their beliefs from the view of the voters, most of the time.

[…] they are still quarrelling about Brexit. Brexit, for Labour, is but the tip of a huge iceberg of chaos. So I will set aside such thoughts about Labour for future postings here, which may or may not […]

I have never claimed that the Labour Party has always been Marxist controlled – although there has always been long been a totalitarian element (for example Harold Laski – who was Chairman of the Labour Party under Atlee, although Atlee thought he was insane).

Whether or not the totalitarians dominate the Labour Party is NOT something we need to speculate upon.

We do not need to speculate – because we can just wait a couple of days (till the leadership election result comes out) and see.

Mr Owen Smith is a man of the left – he is offering more wild government taxes, spending and regulations (and on and on).

If the members of the Labour Party turn him down and stick with Mr Corbyn it will not be because of economic policy.

It will be because they, the members, are committed to dictatorship – to an end of the “capitalist game” of Parliamentary government.

The truth is a simple, and as brutal, as that. We do not have to speculate – we just have to wait and see.

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